Planned Parenthood Affiliate Caught Hurting Women in Ireland

A new investigative report in Ireland has found the taxpayer-funded Irish Family Planning Association organization potentially breaking the law and endangering the health and lives of women in the process. The organization is affiliated with the U.S.-based Planned Parenthood abortion business.

An investigative report in the Irish Independent revealed counselors working for the Irish Family Planning Association encouraged women to lie to their own doctors about having had an abortion, which could place their health at risk. The report found other counselors told women to import dangerous drugs that may cause self-induced abortions and to do so without a prescription or a consultation with their physician.

Importation of the same drugs is illegal under Irish law and one doctor, Sam Coulter Smith, said that the IFPA were putting women’s lives at risk

The revelations from an undercover investigation into taxpayer funded crisis pregnancy agencies, published in today’s Irish Independent, reveal “a widespread culture of disregard for women’s lives and health,” according to Dr Ruth Cullen of the Pro Life Campaign.

She told LifeNews: “Regardless of where one stands on abortion, the findings raise huge issues about women’s lives and safety. They also raise very serious questions about lax governance in the agencies.”

Dr. Cullen called for “an independent public inquiry into how such professional malpractice has been allowed to go unnoticed and uncorrected by the agencies legally tasked with monitoring them.

“Since the HSE and the CPP are themselves implicated in the failure of proper governance of the crisis pregnancy agencies, they are part of the problem and obviously cannot be allowed to supervise the investigation,” she said.

Dr. Cullen continued: “Particularly scandalous is the evidence from a number of IFPA clinics that women were advised to conceal their abortions from their own doctors including if they found they had medical complications from the abortion. This advice clearly had nothing to do with protecting the women from any stigma that might be associated with abortion. One has to ask the question if it had more to do with protecting the reputation of the abortion clinics and the counselling agencies themselves.”

“The legislation under which these agencies are in receipt of taxpayers money mandates a public policy of promoting alternatives to abortion. But the evidence emerging from this undercover investigation suggests a widespread culture of disregard for, if not opposition to that public policy,” Cullen concluded.